Trouble with trills?

Playing Technique
#1

Hi, everyone!
I’ve been working on my trills for a few weeks now by practicing trills.

My practice regime is this: trilling with each finger combination for a bar or two of 16th notes at 80 bpm across all strings between the 1st and the 15th fret.

However, I can’t supinate my fretting hand forearm at 90 degrees angle, only up to 45 degrees, and I feel like that has a negative effect on the development my finger dexterity and speed. I play with my guitar strap high and mimicking the classical position and that helps to an extent, but sometimes the fingers holding down one of the frets (mostly my ring and middle finger) exert tons of pressure even though I pay attention to a light touch on the strings.

My question is: Is efficient practice for fast trills a matter of building endurance at a lower tempo before gradually progressing to higher speeds or a relaxed Bruce Lee-type technique using the twitch reflexes and working on accuracy rather then raw speed?

Any advice with regard to this technique and legato in general would be helpful!

1 Like
#2

I think it’s mostly about relaxing and keeping your fingers close to the fretboard. You can build your nervous system far more than you can the muscles in small movements. You don’t see people who use technique in for example drawing, down the gym trying to get stronger hands, they have all the strength they need from birth, now it’s all about controlling the hands. And a professional animator has to draw really quite fast very accurately. And typists, that might be the perfect example, I’ve never heard of someone who is trying to type super fast down the gym doing finger exercises. The muscle has the strength already, it’s just about nervous system activation.

You don’t need to use each finger equally ofcourse, if you’re going to trill why not use your strongest finger, You can shift the fingers to your preferred trill finger rather than trying to train them all.
I mean look at Gary Moore, he used his preferred fingers rather than what happened to be in that position at that time.

I think a lot of people forget that the Amp is there to amplify our little light movements. You can be very light on the electric guitar and sound like the sky is falling because of the Amp doing the work.

1 Like
#3

Thanks! The songs I’d like to play require stretching that’s not that possible with my two strongest fingers (index and middle finger), and I’m practicing trills for legato in general and all-around fretting hand dexterity.
How would you recommend building speed? Trying to do short bursts of finger combinations that I need 9 or perfecting accuracy at a comfortable tempo?

#4

I think for speed you can and to try move your fingers back n forth fast using very light effort. Because its about training the nervous system to activate fast mostly. If you do it hard your kind of activating both muscles that move the finger back n forth at the same time, so you want to do it light and relaxed to separate them. You can also do isometric training with your fingers to strengthen them up in those positions.

I’m unsure if we can improve the speed our hands muscles move with training or not, in sprinting for example you either have the muscle type to be a pro or don’t. But you should be able to improve your nervous system control.

For a big stretch you’ll be contracting the hand a lot, so try to find the best position where you’re not having to force the stretch much.

1 Like